Why do people use plain english as translation placeholders?

Question

This may be a stupid question, but here goes.

I\'ve seen several projects using some translation library (e.g. gettext) working with plain english placeholders. So f

Answer 1

1. The main language is already existent: you don't need to translate it.
2. Translators have better context with a real sentence than vague placeholders.
3. The placeholders are just the keys, it's still possible to change the original language by creating a translation for it. Because when the translation doesn't exists, it uses the placeholder as the translated text.